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Provocation
What if an intelligent non-human became our political leader?
Citizens have become increasingly unhappy with short-termism politics that rarely create meaningful change, especially when it comes to long term issues like the climate crisis. This project explores how entangled societal factors—politics, economics, culture— can become the material for experimentation and innovation.
Mentors: Elliott Montgomery, Andrew Kruczkiewicz
Duration: March 2020 - May 2020
Team: Darcy, Mohammad, Raissa
Role: Speculative research, Workshop facilitator, Visual design, Worldbuilder, Critical reflector.
Methods: Speculative research and design.
Detailed case study
Speculative or Discursive approach to questioning, mapping the nuances of climate justice and stepping away from design solutionism were at the core of this project. The journey of this inquiry hence was steering away from the hegemonic design practice.
Speculative design work through experiential learning: Stuart Candy
Future top descriptor
Specific future history or state
Representation of time & space
Artifact or Instantation
Truth
These unexpected conditions highlight critical aspects of the climate crisis:
With long term challenges like climate change brought to the forefront,
How might government systems better reflect changing citizen values?
Time
Accountability
Facilitating and designing workshop
Starting out with spotting weak signals about climate and classifying them into STEEP(Social, Technological, Economical, Environmental, Political) which further enacted as a starting point of our research.
Mapping Precedents, Problem areas and framing these clusters around climate justice, policy design and social values were identified.
Post which we designed a Participatory Futures Workshop on Zoom(amidst the pandemic) to identify the values people associate with Energy, policy and values.
What if an intelligent non-human became our political leader?
Participatory futures workshop exploring dimensions of values that shape new energy futures.
Economic
Social
Political
Technological
'Climate crises is a crisis of imagination'
What would this alternate reality look like?
A 2031 newscast from the Global News Network reports on two nation-states that have emerged from a tumultuous upheaval of American politics due to the rapid escalation of climate issues.
People in Hawai'i no longer trust themselves to solve the urgent issues of the climate crisis and are planning to elect a “bioborg”, an intelligent species of tree, named LAKA, on her campaign promise to put Climate First.
In San Francisco, an “artifactual intelligence” named SAM is making local, emergency plans based on data gathered from years of citizens actions, which represent the people's “true will.”
Featured
UNESCO Futures Literacy Summit 2020.
PRIMER conference: First Place+ People's choice winner.
Core 77 Student Showcase.
TISHMAN Environment and Design Center Grant winner.
Global News
Network
Speculative world building
In 2031, both the societies of Hawaii and San Francisco had become increasingly unhappy with short-termism politics that rarely created meaningful change, particularly with long term challenges like climate change. Hungry for true representation, residents create local governments that reflect their values. The federal government no longer exists and data-driven, seemingly objective truths are prioritized.
A newscast by GNN (Global News Network) covers what both local governments are shaping up to look like.
Hawaii is letting climate take precedence over themselves and San Francisco is letting their actions speak louder than their words.
Will either society create positive change? These unexpected conditions highlight critical aspects of the climate crisis: truth, time, and accountability.
S.A.M leader
of SF
Bioborg from
Hawaii
Signal spotting
Framing
World Building
Participatory Futures Workshop
Steps to build the discursive speculative project
